The Field

At times, we have experiences of profound individual or collective connections with other people without even having spoken to them. We somehow know that there is more than verbal interaction, that there is the More. This introductory article explores the Field of connections by giving some examples of this Field and language to describe it. Sometimes we find ourselves in the zone. We find that we excel at things we do well when we are in the zone. There is a flow and effortlessness to our actions.It is almost as if we lose ourselves as a person and we become what we do: the teacher becomes one with the subject and with the classroom, the manager knows exactly what to say to whom in what moment, the mechanic knows what the problem is when he takes a quick look at the car, the runner experiences her runner’s high or the dancer becomes the dance. Occasionally we find ourselves in the zone collectively: a sports team, a team meeting or a group of friends shooting the breeze. It is when we are in a moment that we “don’t want to end” because of the thrill of what is happening, knowing we are in a con nection that would be difficult to find on our own. It is often related to a particular group of people or a particular task. These in the zone experiences are familiar to most people. Wdon’t quite know what an in the zone experience really is or what makes it happen, but that does not make it any less real.It is a powerful experience, an experience of being one with another thing or person or group of people. At the moment we are in it, we are often unaware. Indeed if we take a moment to glimpse it while it is happening, it is often “gone.” The realization comes afterwards.The feeling is undeniable.

The More

A related experience perhaps somewhat less familiar to people is the experience of being part of the More. It is like the in the zone experience in that we don’t quite know how it works, how we
René Molenkamp is co founder of Group Relations International and may be contacted at
Being part of the More is when on the one hand we have our own experience of whatever it is that we experience being in the zone or not and at the same time we realize that the experience is part of something else, something More, something beyond ours elves.Another way of putting it: we have the experience and at the same time we are aware that whatever we experience is something bigger than ourselves. These individual experiences of the More, together form the energy field of connections.Although many of us have experiences like this, it is hard to make sense of them. They are often fleeting. We don’t hold on to them or talk about them. We don’t quite know what to do with them or how and where to place them in our world. It is a bit like making a jigsaw puzzle, and after completing the puzzle yet finding pieces left over that clearly are an extension of this puzzle and at the same time the extension is seemingly just an incomplete fragment. We often put the left over puzzle pieces aside without paying much attention to them, because literally they do not fit in our picture.


One of the aspects of this More is the field of connections. At times, we have experiences of profound individual or collective connections with other people without even having spoken to them. We call this the Field, the field of connections. Obviously, it is a bit of a challenge to describe the Field because our familiar vocabulary is not quite adequate to describe our experiences. We often label these moments with words like coincidence, intuition, premonition, synchronicity, telepathy, serendipity, psychic, mystery,or magic. With these labels we often make these experiences both individual and exceptional; individual in the sense that they we believe they stand on their own and exceptional in the sense that they fall outside the normal range of our experience.When we are in the Field, these experiences are When we are in the Field,these experiences are actually the norm if we take time to notice and stay in this zone. Like our puzzle with those extra pieces, we can then begin to see how these moments are connected to each other and a bigger unfolding picture emerges.As we become more familiar with the Field, we begin to notice how these individual experiences of the More are actually connected to each other. It is as if there is some unknown radio frequency, which normally is surrounded by loud static, but when the conditions are exactly right the reception actually becomes loud and clear. A new world of discovery opens for us.

Noticing The More

There are a couple of very concrete examples that come to mind, which offer illustrations of how this More becomes an energy field of connections those extra puzzle pieces that somehow find each other. A number of years ago, I directed a number of 10 day group relations conferences. Generally speaking, in these experiential conferences, participants study their own group dynamics with the help of specially trained consultants. In a series of group meetings the consultants and the group members try to pay attention to how our unconscious behavior influences group dynamics, particularly related to leadership and authority issues.In this particular conference,I decided that the small groups (the home group throughout the conference) would be formed in such a way that participants of the conference self selected their groups in silence. The instruction was given to wander around the room and to connect with people somehow, and to form three groups of about eight people. In this fluid process, people silently sensed their way through the room and somehow gravitated towards each other until each participant eventually “decided” to morph into a group. A preassigned pair of consultants also participated in this process in a similar way until they found their way to the group they would work with.Immediately after this process, people worked together in these groups and also talked about why they thought they were in the group they were in. Individuals articulatedwhy they made their choices, but they were mostly personal and individual reasons. Many people could speak about feeling a bond towards one or two other people in the group, but no one had hunches about why this group was together.



Invisible Strings

One way of thinking about the Field is through the
circumstances to find the order. It is amazing how a chaotic neighborhood somehow becomes more orderly when viewed from some distance. Those of us who have experienced a plane taking off over a city gain a perspective where we can see its serenity, its intricate connection of the streets, its seeming unity, and its silent peacefulness.What one is likely to see then is a growing order and the neighborhood the city the region being part of a whole.We all carry these invisible filled strings inside of us and we all have the capacity to touch these strings in other people. This process is invisible, but therefore not less real. A manifestation of how this capacity operates is the following. Why is it that when we walk on a busy street we discriminate between people that is: we make choices? I’d love to have a conversation with certain people but not with others. I have decided this intuitively, because of impressions, image or sexual appeal, for example, the way people are dressed, or the way they walk and move. Or it could be that I have decided for a host of other reasons we don’t have words for yet the preverbal ability to touch invisible strings.And all of us have the capacity to respond to the thrill of the string, as by magnetic force. It is almost as if we are weaving a web of like minded or complimentary spirits.


The More as Flash Mob

The idea of a flash mob can help here. There is a flash mob, which takes place in a shopping mall; participants are cleaners,consumers,diners, business people and strollers in that mall. They are participants in the “world” of shopping. But suddenly specific music plays, one person starts singing and is gradually joined by more people. It is clear that in another “world” these different people are connected through music. By making the connection known (and in this case visible) a wonderful gift emerges.In some ways, we are all part of a flash mob, in one “world”, our connections with each other are relatively clear, in another “world”,our connections are to be discovered and revealed, the world of the energy field of connections.And if this connection emerges and is discovered amazing gifts can emerge from that.Of course, the flash mob is in the realm of the known, the organizing principles of a flash mob are clear at least to the organizers and participants in the mob. In the energy field of connections, we deal with the realm of the unknown and the organizing principles are much less clear. What if we are more intentional about the discovery of this unknown? To try to make sense of our extra puzzle pieces, to discover underlying patterns, to speculate about what strings people touch in us and we in other people, to find a common radio frequency, to take a bit of distance from chaos, or simply to pay attention to seemingly disconnected situations and people.There is much more to be discovered about why we arerelated and connected, and if we do discover the reasons, the source, the organizing principles of it, it is my belief that it opens doors to unknown territories in evolution theory.

Practical and Concrete





  1. Being silent. When we stop talking, we listen better, we see more. We pay more attention to what usually easily escapesus or is edited out. In the silence, we become more aware of what goes on around us, and we will pay attention to    our inner movements, our feelings, our thoughts and our memories.
  3. Remaining curious. Many of us are paid to make good judgments and decisions.However, often judgment closes things down, simplified: yes to this, no to that. Curiosity opens things up for exploration. Why does this happen this way in this moment? What can we understand and learn from it?Are there other layers, connections? When we are in love, at some point in the process, we become incredibly curious about the person we are in love with and interpret their behaviors in all    kinds of different ways. Can we apply the same curiosity toour chance encounters and see where they lead?




We make many choices about connections in life consciously and unconsciously, willingly and unwillingly in terms of partners,parents, children, friends, colleagues, and lots of groups we belong to. These connections take place in familiar ways of meeting another person, like having a conversation with a friend or falling in love. Seemingly less meaningful or haphazard connections, for example with check out clerks, new neighbors, the woman with her journal at my favorite café, the person who contacted me toreturn my lost phone, the person who mysteriously always annoys me, etc. may have more to them than we initially think.They are unseen and often unnoticed connections. And these connections even exist between people who have never met. We have our reasons why we have the relationships we have and at the same time, we are together because of the energy field of connections. If we apply this energy field of connections theory to our relationships, then our connections to people may also reveal some thing different, something to be discovered, something More. We may need a different mindset and language to discover it. Let me end with a story from a Dr. Seuss book.†It is about a boy who challenged his playmates to stretch their imagination beyond the traditional 26 letters of the alphabet – from A (Ape) to Z (Zebra) to create an extended alphabet.

In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z
I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re oneof my friends
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends

This is one of a series of working papers
we are currently offering as work-in-progress
through the Group Relations International website,
Your thoughts or reflections are very welcome.